2019 AV Group AGM President Report
Prepared by Peter Gabriel on May 29, 2019
Dear Members,
As I write this Report for the June 22nd AV Group Annual General Meeting, I write with the knowledge that the Group Bargaining Team has a Tentative Agreement in place with Treasury Board of Canada. More details in my Bargaining Committee Report further on in the binder.
As I look back on my first year as President, I can honestly say that many promises made to you from my election platform has been fulfilled.
The term started out with a bang by having our very first Bargaining Symposium back in the summer 2018, where over 30 members came out to share their thoughts with me and our National PIPSC President Debi Daviau.
Since the summer, I promised to meet as many members in the regions and the NCR as possible. And our travels to meet members and discussing bargaining points was beneficial in bargaining negotiations, to get a real good sense of what you the member wanted and what was important to you.
From Victoria, Vancouver, Burnaby, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Waterloo ON, Toronto, Ottawa and Gatineau NCR, Montreal, Quebec City, Fredericton, Halifax and St. John’s, member engagement was very important to me.
I look forward to more membership engagement, in particular getting on board with members in Halifax, Quebec City and Southern Ontario cities such as Windsor, London, Waterloo/Kitchener/Hamilton, Mississauga, North Toronto 4900 Yonge, and Kingston ON.
To assist in member engagement, I am dispatching great communicators Andree Doucet, Group Secretary along with Vice-President and Subgroup Coordinator James Bright, and with several of our female executives to have a diverse and different approach to Open House recruitment mobilization events in Halifax later in 2019, same for Southern Ontario, as we need to assist our Regional Reps in these future Open House style events. The days of old boy’s club mentality is long gone. Now we want to reach those members that were afraid to participate. The open-door policy is finally in place in the Group.
And finally, the AU – Auditors will be moving to Association of Canadian Financial Officers (ACFO), in the creation of the new Comptroller Classification (CT). Unfortunately, this was a Treasury Board reclassification directive and the unions really had no say in this matter. PIPSC Board of Directors decided the best fit was with ACFO CT-AU.
I look forward to a very exiting 2019 where we ratify our tentative agreement before the fall election, and continue with our member engagement initiatives listed above.
In solidarity,
Peter Gabriel
President